Title text: He actually installed each piece in a different car in the lot, then built a new car in the spot from the displaced pieces. It's a confusing maneuver known as the auto-troll shuffle.

Explanation

When a person has been appointed to one of certain positions by the President, they must first go through a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate, the upper house of Congress where they find if the person is qualified to be in the position they have been appointed to. Of course, Black Hat is not the cleanest of characters, so Congress has a lot of reservations about his résumé.

He hasn't yet, but in 562: Parking, Black Hat will cut someone's car in half to make it fit in a single space. Not quite as dramatic as completely disassembling a car and, as the title text says, putting a single piece in another car parked in the lot, and building a car out of the displaced parts, which could almost be considered subtle; but, it is quite dramatic.

Taking all the parts from different cars to build in a new car in the same spot parallels the idea in philosophy of the Ship of Theseus in which a question arises of whether a ship is the same ship if it is replaced piece by piece by identical pieces.

9/11 Truthers believe that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001 (thus 9/11) was not actually organized by terrorists, but by the United States government. Black Hat apparently claims to subscribe to a comedically exaggerated version of this conspiracy theory in which the attacks did not happen at all and the World Trade Center is presumably still standing. Such a conspiracy is extremely implausible, as it would require either the involvement of every single person to ever set foot in one of the world's largest cities, or some way to conceal a pair of hundred story tall buildings.

RadioShack is a chain of consumer electronics shops that sold parts to build electronics with: resistors, transistors, etc. Apparently Black Hat managed to build a death ray from the parts there and accidentally vaporized a customer. His line "Figures that'd be the one day that there'd be a customer in the aisle" refers to the fact that RadioShack stores have been in steady decline over the years, largely propped up by momentum.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the second female justice on the Supreme Court, appointed by President Clinton. The relevance here is that during her own confirmation hearings, she refused to answer many questions about her personal views, frustrating many Senators (nevertheless, she was confirmed, 96-3). John Roberts, the current Chief Justice, was similarly evasive in his hearings, citing the "Ginsburg Precedent."

"Pleading the fifth" is to invoke the Fifth Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights. Specifically, when someone pleads the fifth, they mean that they cannot be compelled to give testimony against themselves. That is, they do not have to say anything that could be taken as an admission of guilt. The third amendment states that no homeowner has to keep troops of the United States Army in their house against their will in peacetime. Either Black Hat

Doesn't understand the 3rd Amendment,

Just chooses this amendment over the 5th to confuse the committee which seems to forget the question,

Believes the nuclear submarine to be his property, and rather than stealing it he was simply expelling military personnel who were "quartered" in his nuclear sub without his permission,

Stole the submarine in order to have a convenient place other than his house to quarter troops

The final panels show Ron Paul's blimp finally approaching Washington DC. The balloon spotted on their radar is presumably piloted by blogger Cory Doctorow.

This series was released on 5 consecutive days (Monday-Friday) and not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.

It is possible that this series is a continuation of 493: Actuarial, in which Black Hat demonstrates great power over even Internet trolls via his sociopathic ways. This would explain why Black Hat was chosen as Internet secretary.

Transcript

[The confirmation hearings begin.]

Senator: It appears you have quite an arrest record.

Senator: Is it true you completely disassembled someone's car outside a Starbucks?

Black Hat: It was parked across two spaces.

Senator: You stole a red Fokker triplane and strafed the snoopy float at the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade?

Discussion

I did some research on Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her confirmation hearing, but couldn't quite see why she has a criminal record similar to Black Hat's - can anybody help there? Bobidou23 (talk) 20:03, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe because people assume that if you are rectinent,you are probably hiding something?117.194.203.236 15:47, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Why would US submariners been on the sub he stole? I got the impression it was a Russian submarine. 108.162.219.223 22:21, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Or it was a US sub and he "parked" it in Russian territory, something the Russion goverment wouldn't be fond of either. But yeah I thought it was a Russian sub as well. Tharkon (talk) 15:50, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Is the auto-troll shuffle a reference to something? Seanybabes (talk) 02:57, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I got the impression that it was in reference to the "Kansas City shuffle" from the movie "Lucky Number Sleven". It was the first move in a very complicated revenge scheme. 108.162.246.224 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I went in and cleaned up the submarine explainations. It seems like they were put there by someone who hadn't actually read Journal 3.
Reywas (talk) 20:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I love the 'citation needed' on the "It's unclear how feeding a squirrel through a fax machine can help win an argument. Whoever did that should be promoted. :) --JayRulesXKCDwhat's up? 12:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if he chose to plead the third because he stole the submarine in Secretary 3 and it was seen in Journal 3...162.158.74.33 03:29, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

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